In the movie world, an indie director who can do something special on a tiny sum is occasionally given the keys to a blockbuster franchise. Here’s a musical equivalent. New York pianist Regina Spektor started out in the early 2000s writing solo piano songs that were distinctive enough to earn her concert support slots and a recorded duet with The Strokes. Two decades on, her eighth album features significantly more in the way of instrumentation. Spacetime Fairytale in particular is nearly nine minutes long, a baroque suite featuring a sumptuous orchestra, multiple gear changes and a tap dancer.
Despite the heavily populated credits list, she recorded alone in a converted church in upstate New York with only producer John Congleton and engineer Ariel Shafir for company, so Covid-cautious that she wouldn’t be in the same room as them. The orchestra was recording in Macedonia. Some of the most powerful moments come from the contrast between her small, sad voice and the grander gestures of the backdrop. Becoming All Alone builds to a gigantic, rich sound halfway through before everything drops away except Spektor and the piano. The ballad Raindrops sounds the most like her older material, touching in its comparative simplicity, and no wonder: it’s the first recording of a song she’s had in her back pocket since her early days.
